Helping a Stranger
by The Cosmic Penguin
Summary: Sometimes we help people, even if we don't know anything about them. Contains spoilers for 'Kirby's Return to Dream Land' from retold canon scenes.


A/N: The idea for this came from the credits music of 'Kirby's Return to Dream Land', which was titled 'Return to Dream Land'...but unfortunately the story's awesomeness was not directly equivalent to the awesomeness of both the credits music or its title, so I'm stuck with 'Helping' as my title instead. The other titles sucked worse than my writing does.

**Disclaimer**: Oh, look! Do you think Cos owns a Nintendo franchise? Sadly, NO!

* * *

"Look, a ship!"

"It's falling over that way!"

"Hurry, hurry!"

"Get to it quickly!"

A normal tease-and-chase-for-cake routine for Kirby and Dedede had been interrupted for the first time in what seemed like forever. First it had been interrupted by Bandana Dee, who wanted his share. But as the threesome ran through the meadow—Kirby in the lead with the cake; Dedede and Bandana Dee in pursuit—an interdimensional pulse had rippled through the air. Kirby, being able to naturally pick up on such things, directed his gaze to the area where a dark, star-shaped portal rimmed with neon blue had opened in the otherwise-bright sky. His two pursuers had rammed into him when he stopped short, and the pink puff risked a quick glance down to see if the shortcake he was holding had been knocked to the ground.

Unfortunately, he was right. It was lying on the ground ruined.

Then all his attention directed to the sky as a beautifully-crafted ship sailed downward from the portal and out into the open sky. His hunch that something was wrong with it was only confirmed when parts began to explode off from the ship and encircle themselves in protective magic spheres before flying off through the sky. Many things flew through Kirby's mind in that instant, and all of those thoughts propelled his feet forward.

_Where did it come from?_

_Are its passengers okay?_

_Why is it exploding?_

_Where will it land?_

_Is anybody hurt?_

_WILL anybody get hurt?_

_Is it harboring an evil villain?_

He hoped it wasn't. It looked like such a nice ship. It looked like the Starship shooter that had saved his life before. As Kirby ran toward the falling ship at a far quicker pace than normal, he heard that footsteps were following behind him. Judging from the breathing and heavy weight, he assumed it was Dedede. Kirby grinned. _ Well, if it IS an evil villain, at least I'll have a meat shield just in case._

The ground reverberated as the ship crashed into a steep, thick mound of dirt rimmed with moss and grass. Dirt and dust clouds flew up from the impact, and the vegetation struggled to cling on despite the shaking its foundation took. The ship moaned slightly before it settled and became still. A few dirt clods fell off the mound, along with a clump of moss.

Then everything was still.

Kirby walked up to the side of ship, ignoring the unstable hill beside it and instead focusing on the aircraft. Holes where ship parts had broken off had swirls of space-looking areas in them, complete with little stars. Kirby tried not to let the others see him analyzing it—he tried his best to be the more innocent one, not the more technical one. That was Meta Knight's job.

Speaking of Meta Knight, Kirby could feel that he had walked up with them. It was probably dumb luck that he had gotten here so fast—the blue knight had been getting out and about far more than he had when he first moved to Dream Land, and recently he'd gotten up the nerve to actually fly around non-secluded areas. Kirby was rather glad about this, though not necessarily because of the social interaction part...it just made it easier to find him. Or to ram him with his Warpstar.

Kirby was shocked out of his thoughts when the side of the ship glowed brightly. He—and everyone else present—jumped back slightly. When the glow died down, there was a bright, white entryway into the ship. The quartet turned to look at each other, all wary of what might be lurking inside. Then they nodded. They had each other's backs, and nothing had attacked them yet. It was okay to go in.

Kirby walked in first, his eyes somehow not blinded by the sheer brightness of the ship's interior. Everything was white and sea-foam except for a large computer screen. Two small hallways led off to the side, presumably to the ship's lodging and storage areas. In the middle of all this, a small robed figure was lying on the floor. Kirby and the others walked closer to it, curious to see what had happened to it and whether it was alive. The creature made no movements even when they came inches from it. Dedede and Bandana Dee shuffled uneasily, Meta Knight peeked around and tried to see everything while still holding his cape around himself, and Kirby—

—Kirby was left to be the brave one. He rolled his eyes briefly before reaching down to tap the creature on the shoulder, but the being sprung up before his paw could make contact. It stared at them before hurrying over to the beeping computer screen and typing some commands into it. Various status screens came up; some that Kirby could understand, and some that were in a modified language. All of them COULD understand one screen, however, and that screen showed what happened to the ship.

The wings were gone, the sail was gone, the emblem was gone, the oars were gone, and all 120 of some gear-looking-things were completely gone. The ship was a mere frame now, with no means of travel, power, or magical protection. Kirby's heart twisted, and the alien looked just as devastated. He gave a little shout of despair before letting his head fall onto one of his hands in frustration.

Kirby stared at the screen. Then he stared at the alien.

_There's no WAY that the guy is gonna be able to fix this—he doesn't even look like he can fix the __**ship **__himself. Those parts could be anywhere, and he's not even from around here. Now his cool magic-ship is broken and he's lost and he can't fix it...at least, he can't without __**help**__..._

Kirby tiptoed over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. The alien seemed a bit startled, but before he could say any words of protest, Kirby jumped the line.

"Hi! I'm Kirby, and I can help you! I can go out and find your ship parts for you, no problem!"

The little creature looked over to him; his face questioning, puzzling, plotting, considering...all sorts of stuff that Kirby had a hard time figuring out because his face was hidden.

"You'll fix...my ship?" he said slowly, apparently still a bit dazed.

Kirby nodded. "Yes, I can fix it. I swear by the stars that I'll fix your ship for you!" To emphasize his point, he jumped up and snapped some stars out of his paw (oh, how he loved doing that...). The little guy stared at him again, and Kirby still couldn't tell what he was thinking. Before he could put his paw on what exactly that look in his eye meant, King Dedede dashed over to him.

"I'm not gonna be outdone on hospitality by someone who isn't even a citizen! I'm KING Dedede, and I'm signing on to help too!"

"It's my job as a wanderer to offer help when needed, so here I am." Bandana Dee quipped. Both he and the king nodded to affirm their assistance. Kirby grinned.

"See? They'll help too." He nodded thankfully to them. Meta Knight walked over as well, but at this point, the alien was so ecstatic about his agreement to help that he didn't notice the blue puffball. Instead, he grabbed Kirby's paws and shook them so vigorously that both of their bodies bounced up and down. He squealed his thanks out quickly, and then he whipped around to the computer screen and pressed a button. A new screen popped up that showed the location of the ship parts and their approximate locations.

"I have five ship parts and 120 energy spheres. All of them have the same magic around them, so they'll be easy to spot. All I need are the five ship parts and I can _fly _this thing again! I could even take you guys out for a spin! It looks like they're on the five points of this planet, but it's really just a field location. Here's the names of all the places—hold on a sec—oh, this one's pretty close; it's the oars."

All of them stared at the screen.

"Hey, Cookie Country is the name for the valley right across from here." Dedede stated. "It's right next door."

"Sweet!" the alien called. "Are you guys gonna—"

"Let's GO!" the foursome shouted in unison. Kirby flipped upside down and landed on one foot. The others soon followed—Bandana Dee jumped, Dedede punched the air with his fist, and Meta Knight vanished his cape. The little alien punched the air with one of his hands as well.

"Great! I'll see you later!" he called as the heroes ran out the door. He followed after them, waving as they left. "My name's Magolor, by the way; good luck!"

* * *

**"PREPARE TO BOW, POPSTAR! WELCOME YOUR NEW OVERLORD!"**

Kirby stared as Magolor disappeared through the portal he had summoned, expression completely blank of how he was really feeling.

He knew he could beat Magolor—if he could get to him somehow.

He _knew _there _had _to be some way to beat him, _somehow_.

He knew that Magolor had betrayed them.

And now he knew that he had just been used all along.

It wasn't like he hadn't been used and betrayed before, but this was more personal. He had reached out and offered help to someone whom he truly thought had needed it, and now that person was going to destroy his planet as a thank-you. After all the time they'd spent risking their lives to get all his ship parts back, traveling with him to Halcandra, trekking all the way through factories and enchanted volcanoes to beat up a creature who was actually innocent...to find they had been mere play-toys in the grand scheme of things, unimportant now that Magolor had obtained the Master Crown.

After all he'd done to try and help Magolor be happy again, he found out the alien had never really cared about anything more than becoming an absolute dictator. And he'd dragged his friends into this too.

Kirby merely stared up at the portal, wondering what he could do to help. The Warpstar crossed his mind, but he didn't know how to track Magolor and he couldn't fly it as fast with four people weighing it down in projectile-dodging. Doing that was asking to get shot down. Maybe he could just go by himself; this was his fault after all, and—why was the ground shaking?

"K-Kirby! Look ou—"

The pink puffball felt something grab the top of his head and toss him into the air. He flapped his paws and feet trying to upright himself, but ended up turning right-side-up anyway before he fell onto something solid. When he opened his eyes, he saw his paws were on something reddish-orange and scaly. Some dragon wings flapped next to him, and his seat uprighted itself.

Red-orange scales, wings, waved head, short tail, small-but-ridable body...

It was..._Landia_?

But why?

Kirby was in position to ride her, but he knew of no reason why—unless...

The dragon lowered her wings and turned her intense gaze to make eye contact with him. Kirby noted that a scarlet-colored star mark was seared onto the center of her face, though why he hadn't noticed that before was a mystery to him. The dragon's large blue eyes made contact with his own sapphire ones.

_"You...are Kirby of the Stars, correct?"_ She went on telepathically before he had time to answer._ "Then I, Queen Landia, am at your service to help you. There is no task that ranks above saving your planet—and perhaps, the universe—at this very moment."_

"Y-you'll help us?" he stuttered in quite the same manner Magolor had.

She nodded before turning her head toward the portal, where Popstar was glowing in all its glory. The planet kept shining, despite the darkness that could descend upon it. It took Kirby a moment to comprehend this.

"We just battled you; why...why would you—"

_"Because," _she cut him off,_ "Sometimes you must help people in life, even if you don't know anything about them. If you only helped people who you knew everything about, there would be a lot of hurt people in this world. And if we do not collaborate to destroy this evil, a lot more people will be hurt by Magolor. So I think that trusting people works out quite well most of the time, don't you?"_

Landia became silent as she kept staring at the portal. Kirby processed her answer for a moment, comprehending it. Then a smile crossed his face, and it broke into a grin. He could hear the other dragons that made up Landia coming closer and grabbing his friends. As Kirby glanced around to see his friends mounted on the Landia dragons like an eight-member air-patrol, his smile only grew wider.

He had helped someone without knowing about them, and that person had betrayed him and was now trying to destroy the galaxy.

But in the same event, he'd found someone who was willing to help _them _without knowing about them, and she was going to help him save the galaxy. So it came full circle, and it wasn't bad to help strangers after all. He'd just gotten unlucky...really unlucky.

All eyes were on the sky now, staring up at the image of Popstar. That was their goal—fly into the portal to stop Magolor, no matter what the cost. With a shared goal in mind, the formation took off and rocketed through the portal. They were a team going on trust to stop someone whom they had trusted but had betrayed them. There was no turning back—work together to defeat Magolor, or let the universe be ruled by a dictator with an overly-powerful relic holding infinite power.

The portal closed behind them. Kirby noticed that his friends and the dragons were all staring ahead, with the dragons closely matching his friends in battle tastes. The pink puff refocused his gaze ahead of himself with the rest of them. Landia was already firing off a few shots of magic to get warmed up and to show his friends what she could do so they could work together in a more streamlined way. Kirby now wore the same look of determination that the front dragons wore.

_I couldn't have asked for a better ally in a fight like this._

_And it's because she trusted me even though she didn't know __**anything **__about me._

_Maybe...that's not such a bad thing to do after all..._

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